A boy of 14 fears the scar he suffered in a vicious school playground slashing will prevent him from ever getting a job.

The youngster’s mum has hit out at the lack of support for her son and claims the ordeal has left her a “broken woman”.

Jack was left permanently scarred after a fellow pupil, who was 13 at the time, assaulted him with a blade at a secondary school in West Lothian last September.

He needed five stitches to close the gaping wound on his cheek and one year on, he still bears the physical and psychological scars of the attack.

Mum Ann, 48, said her son has “never been the same” following the brutal incident.

She told: “Jack used to always be outgoing. He was strong-willed. Other boys kind of looked up to him because they knew he’d have their back.

“But the incident has changed him. He’s a cracking wee football player but he’s actually given up his football.

“A lot of the time he’s in his room playing his Playstation. He doesn’t really speak that much now.

“But you can see the frustration in him sometimes. It’s things like he’ll say to me, ‘If I go to get a job, it’s the first thing that people are going to look at – they don’t assume that you’re a victim.’

“A lot of people are very judgmental and they think that someone with a scar on their face is a thug. He’s scared that people are looking at him in a different light.”

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On the day of the incident the attacker, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had gone to school with a knife after arranging a fight with another pupil and claims he intended to use the weapon to threaten others who might intervene.

He attacked the 14-year-old he planned to fight and repeatedly punched him, before getting into a struggle with Jack and striking him on the cheek with the blade.

The attacker pleaded guilty at Livingston Sheriff Court and was caged for 12 months.

The sheriff had concluded that only a custodial sentence was appropriate as there was a need to send out a message to young people about the taking of knives into schools.

However, the sentence was later quashed by judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh, who last week ruled that a community payback order with an 18-month supervision requirement would be a more appropriate punishment, largely due to the offender’s age.

Ann said the appeal ruling was a second blow for the family and fears that the decision could have a damaging impact.

She said: “What message is this sending out? That you can get a knife and if you’re under a certain age, you’ll just get a community payback order. There’s not a deterrent.

“At 13 and 14, you’re accountable for your actions. You know right from wrong.

“I feel like the accused has gotten away with what he’s done and Jack has to live with that for the rest of his life.”

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Ann says the incident still haunts her and claims she’ll never forget seeing her son bandaged up in the back of the ambulance in the school grounds.

Reliving the fateful day, she said: “I got the phone call at 10 to nine in the morning to say there’s been an incident at the school and we’re just waiting on an ambulance for Jack.

“Little did I think I was going to go to the school and find out he had been slashed with a knife.

“When I got there I was in such a panic. Jack was bandaged up but it looked like it was over one of his eyes and I thought, ‘Oh please, no’.

“The ambulance driver said his eye was fine but it was his cheek that got it. He showed me it and I was horrified. It just looked like this big gaping wound.

“I just thought, ‘Oh my god, his beautiful wee face. His face is ruined for life’”.

She says the school “hasn’t done enough” to support Jack and didn’t phone her to check to see if he was OK following the attack.

“It happened on the Friday of a September weekend so the children were off on Monday and Tuesday,” she added.

“When I said I was disappointed in the school that no one phoned to ask how he was, the answer that I got was, ‘But the school was on holiday.’

“Someone could have taken my contact details and gave me a ring.”

The incident has taken its toll on Ann, who lives in fear that her son might come to harm again.

She said: “In the very beginning I wasn’t sleeping. I was put on anti-depressants because my mood was so low through worry and worrying about what was going through Jack’s mind because he wasn’t speaking. To be quite honest with you, I was a bag of nerves. I felt like a zombie.

“You’re trying to go about your normal daily routine and not wanting Jack to see me upset.

“I was waiting until I got to bed at night and having a cry to myself.”

Ann, who also has three daughters aged 17, 22 and 29 and a second son aged 24, says the Government must do more to tackle knife crime in schools.

She claims they have failed to take significant action following the death of Bailey Gwynne, 16, who was stabbed to death by a fellow pupil during a fight at Cults Academy, Aberdeen, in October 2015.

Ann added: “After what happened to that young lad in Aberdeen, the Government said they were going to crack down on knife crime because they didn’t want an incident like this happening again.

“Why does it keep happening? Why is nothing being done? People’s lives are being ruined.

“Something needs to be done to deter these young ones from using a knife. They have no idea the impact of their actions and how that affects a family.

“I know there are parents out there who have lost their kids and, in a way, I’m lucky that it wasn’t more severe. But the Government need to do something or it’s going to keep happening and somebody else is going to get killed.”

● Names have been changed to protect the identities of those involved.